So. Freakin' Sick.

All of us, except for Justinbustin now. Ugh. My face feels like a cotton ball dipped in hot liquid. No thanks to you guys scaring me off the colloidal... haha, well I'm gargling it less now any way and not swallowing. Wow, I can manage to make a post sound dirty quick. Ew. Back to sickness. No wait, please, please go away sickness!! You are obviously messing with my mind!! Not to mention my emotional health in that I am wanting to lay down and cry for hours because we won't be able to go on our trip this weekend (to my Dad's annual client appreciation dinner in Cali). @#$&*! At least we're going in March for spring break for an extended period. I think we'll quarantine ourselves for a week before then.

Sick, Sick, Sick

There always seem to be a post with this title at least once a year... maybe more, who knows. Brando has had a fever ranging from 101-104 the past two days. Yesterday I started up with a cough and then was feeling miserable by the evening. I'm feeling better today, probably only because I'm gargling colloidal silver every hour and laying in bed all day in between facilitating the boys' schoolwork. Normally we're finished by 3pm, no matter what. It's 6:30pm and Justinbustin's still working. At least we got a late start, when my body finally stopped aching enough to get up. Pray for us that it doesn't affect our trip this weekend and that the boys stay WELL!

2008 Goals Update

So S posted an update of her resolutions here, which reminded me I need to post an update of mine. You know, keep myself accountable and all that sh*t. You can see my original goals here.

Personal

On girl time: So far so good with this one!! I've been to dinner countless times, two girls' nights so far this month including a martini party, lots of afternoon rondevues, and I've been very good keeping in touch with email. I even made a new friend and we have a date set to go get coffee next week. Yay me! I've got two trips to California lined up, and am planning a third in June for my girls' trip! Note Hanging with friends doesn't really help me discover who I am as I had previously thought, it helps but I'm realizing not as much as school and therapy.

Leaving my face alone! In just the last week I've done really REALLY well leaving my face alone. I've learned how to take care of it without beating it up so much, and I've fully infiltrated my face care routine intsteaming my face every other week or so.

Being easier on myself: So this one I haven't thought much about, I guess I have been too busy to! I think I've subconsciously been working on it, because there's been more than a few times I've given myself a break when I would normally get totally down on myself. Thanks to PB&Razz, I've made a decision to not argue in front of the kids. We've done better on it, as in leaving the arguments as heated discussions without yelling, but eventually we'll get to where we take it in the other room immediately or wait until later.

Aspirations

Finishing another three semesters of class: I'm on my way! I'm taking another math class this semester and will hopefully stack up a few more in the summer, once my math. I originally had a desire to do psychology, but four year psychology degree = no money and I need to be able to make some money after my four year.Teaching eaching highschool or college sounds intriguing. I'm going to look into what it takes and go from there.

Getting my house to where I need it to be: Besides my house being a freakin' pigsty right now I've been steadily doing mission after Flylady mission and the weight of all that lurks in the corners is being slightly lifted. Now if only I could get the laundry to lift itself off the floor and hang itself up.

Enjoying life! In the moment: Oh I've been soooo good at this! We've been having SUCH a blast this month!! Going to Houston, spending the days at Zilker, actually making it to church, going to cub scouts, girl night and girl times. And there are pictures! Lots and lots of pictures!! Happy pictures! Now I just need to find the thing that takes them off my card to put on the computer.

Martini Tini Party Weekend

Wow what a weekend! Going into it I had no idea I had packed so many fun-filled events into one Saturday but the full realization of it all hit me when the boys and I were out of the house and on the road at 9:35 in the morning!!

First stop, we made it to the Austin's Family Magazine Summer Camp Fair. ,This truly deserves a post in and of itself, but for time's sake I will just say why. 1) I feel like such a good mommy for having all the possible fun and exciting summer day, week, and overnight camp fliers, registration sheets, and brochures neatly 3-hole punched and in a binder all ready to pick and choose, 2) They gave away t-shirt after t-shirt after baseball hat after beach ball after backpack after rudix cube after CD after popcorn... and the list goes on. The kids came away with a full backpack's worth. Not to mention every other booth had a fun activity for the kids to do to entice them to pick their summer camp, 3) Over one hundred summer camps were represented and I got to see them all in a few short hours, as well as reward my kids for patiently walking with me (and collecting loot) the entire time by letting them jump in the moonwalk and feed a camel. Justinbustin walked out of there saying, "That was AWESOME!"

We made time for a quick lunch at the South's In N Out (i.e. P. Terry's) and drove up the highway to watch Squishy while my girlfriend finished up poking my husband with needles (i.e. acupuncture). I nearly fainted when I saw him laying on the table in the process. The boys and I took Squishy for a walk around the block with Justinbustin pushing him in his jogging stroller the. entire. time. Maybe I could have another. My girlfriend finished up with Brando and we chatted about the coming week's get togethers before I kissed my hubby and boys goodbye and we parted ways.

I headed over to a girfriend's appt. to get a tattoo and made it to the finishing touches of my girlfriend, Genie's, skull and stars tattoo on her ankle, and chatted with her while it bled out (yeah, that was the cringe I made when I heard that term). And got three hugs for making it : ) .

After putting the morning's brochures and papers into a three ring binder and separating out the boys' loot into Justinbustin and Shawners piles, I quickly changed into a casual but cute enough to still look like I'm going out outfit for Brando's work event at Dave & Buster's. We chatted with his coworkers and played arcade games for the better part of the early evening, which warranted another awesome! from Justinbustin.

Back at home for the second time, I changed into my little black dress from O'Neill, evening'd up my makeup, and headed over to Li's for her second annual martini party. We set out the h'or deourves and the recipes for yummy martinis, and then partied the night away with Chocolate Martinis, French Martinis, Champagne Martinis, Acid Rain Martinis, and Flirtinis. We took picture after picture after picture, and had way too many fully martini'd out conversations that ended in non-stop girlie laughter. This is one annual tradition that's just for us girlies to doll up ourselves and our men and just enjoy ourselves.

3:30am ended the Saturday night fun and at 10am this morning I was in the bathtub with a chaser of coffee and toast willing myself to not have a hangover as we headed to church. My girlie, Kels, texted me asking me to save her a seat as she was running late. I told her, whoever gets there first. She beat us by a few minutes. I stumbled in next to her and we got sick to our stomachs over the mornings topic (men, and their wayward eyes and minds), but had a really needed serious hour and a half long conversation following our class regarding the same.

Brando, the boys, and I headed to our favorite obsession and filled our tummies to continue to ward off the impending hangover. Satisfied, we mandated a half hour nap in the car before we spent the rest of the day Zilker park enjoying the beautiful 70 degree clear blue sky day while capturing on film the boys and Brando climbing tree after tree. Kels showed up at the volleyball courts at Zilker later in the afternoon with her hubby. She and I wrapped ourselves in the amazingly warm blanket she had to lay out on the grass and chatted until the sun went down, while the boys threw balls for her dogs or played volleyball, and Brando finally sat back and relaxed for a moment.

Fabulous friends, amazing family, yummy food, outstanding drinks, and plenty of sunshine. My weekend couldn't have gone any more wonderfully.

*Pictures to come.

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Being a good blogger

I've managed to update my bloglines list with my new reads, readers, and lurkers :). If I've missed anyone it's either because I completely missed you or couldn't find your homepage so please if I missed you let me know!

Being the super bad memeer I am, in all my linkage I finally came across the meme (I'm with Mia, how the heck do you say that word!) I said I'd do, so here's to smarter princess:

The guidelines are:
Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs
Start a random or weird fact for the next person...

I'm not the greatest at these things so here goes...

1. It's very hard for me to come up with random facts about myself. I think I'm pretty normal in how I do things, and I'm sure that's got to be weird in and of itself given my completely not so normal way of life.

2. I have to work very, very hard at staying organized. It just doesn't come naturally to me. Once I get it down I'm very, very good at it but I have to learn how to do it first and then really want to continue doing it just for me in order to make it a habit.

3. I didn't choose to be a Mom, it chose me. If there is any advice I have for those who are young and thinking about becoming mothers it is: wait until you're at least 26. Sure we will be young parents when our kids are older, and young grandparents, all of which will be great. In the meantime our kids get the brunt of US growing up while they are growing up themselves.

4. I'm obsessed with travel. However I have resigned myself to the fact that it may not happen anytime soon. Believe me, it WILL happen, just a little later when we have the resources to do it. In the meantime San Diego trips to see my cousin, Santa Cruz trips to see my family, maybe a trip to DC to see Laura, and the occasional drive to Houston or Dallas will do more than well. Once I settle one of my new year's resolutions though Brando and I are so going somewhere more interesting (suggestions taken now and we can do a vote later)!!

5. I hate having an 84 lb. dog in a 2 bedroom apartment with four people. She may be the sweetest, best dog in the world, but. 84 lb dog. 2 bedroom apartment. 4 people. Enough said.

6. I used to (read: last year) be obsessed with owning a suburbia house in suburbia land surrounded by suburbia neighbors. Now I'm not so sure. I really don't care or even want to be in suburbia anymore. Somewhere where there's good schools, good food, shopping nearby, and real people would be great. Throw in a decent priced house and it's a deal.

7. I wear ivory/beige the most. My closet was never organized until last year. Now I have it organized by color, sleeve length, and most worn color. When I did that I noticed ivory/beige shirts take up 40% of my shirt space. I guess I feel like it makes my skin look more tan than it is and it always puts a smile on my face even if it's not a smiley sort of day.

Random/weird fact for the next person: Before I go to bed at night I like to...

Tagging:

Lava Rocks
Lilly
Heather
ExEverything
Mia, because she needs a meme, altho she pretty much just did this same thing on her own
b, because she needs a blog : ) xoxo
Cecilia, because I miss hearing about her life on her blog

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And now Justinbustin's baking muffins

Does life get any better?

"Justinbustin gets the biggest one because he made them." Shawners

Having a BLAST!

We went on our first ever hotel vacation that we've paid for this weekend and stayed overnight in Houston to see the Kemah Boardwalk and the Houston Space Center. We've taken plenty of "family" vacations before and road trips but someone has always paid for the hotel, the gas, the airfare, and we've always stressed about how we're going to pay for the food. We've spent the same amount of money as we did this weekend before, but on stuff. I wanted to know we would actually spend that same amount on something we did together. I found out this weekend we would : ) !

You can't see it but he's watching the Texas ocean water below him

We got into Houston Sunday evening and I took Brando to see the Kemah Boardwalk which sits on the water of an inlet of the Texas coast. It was his first time to see the Texas ocean! Kemah is such a fun little place. All the marinas surrounding the amusement park and the carnival games take me back to Santa Cruz and for a moment I feel a little bit of home here in Texas. The kids loved all the sights and sounds and walking through the Aquarium restaurant as if it was a real aquarium.

I love how the only thing illuminating our faces is the light from the water

Monday we woke up and leisurely ate our breakfast in bed and watched cartoons and the wind blowing the palm trees and the boats in the harbor outside our window.

We eventually got dressed and left our beautiful hotel room behind and took off to the Houston Space Center. We got there a little early (nobody manning the parking booth so free parking! Score.) and hung out until they opened. The kids and I had been there before and they LOVED it. I wasn't too impressed, but they loved it so much it was the first thing I thought of for a quick vacation. Turns out I had gotten the wrong impression as there was a lot more to see than I had seen the first time.

Me planning out our divide and conquer route in the IMAX theatre

In the cockpit of a space shuttle

Practicing being in space

We watched a few shows, took the tram to tour three of the other buildings at the space center - one of which included the original mission control room back when Neil Armstrong went to the moon, and a building housing one of the rockets that was 356 feet long and HUGE all the way around. We had no idea they were that large. We had fun taking pictures "holding" it up. We watched shows in their IMAX theatre, practiced being an astronaut fixing a space station, weighed ourselves on Jupiter (230 lbs!!) and Mars (37 lbs!!), and enjoyed every single moment.

A painting on the wall

Me! As an astronaut. Of course we got ones of the kids too!

Original mission control that ran on 400k

This was too precious not to include...

Justinbustin to mission control. Shawners?

High-fivin' Neil on the moon!

We exhausted ourselves chugging through the space center for five hours and then headed home with the kids passed out in the backseat for all three and a half hours of driving home! We came into town and stopped for milkshakes to celebrate our little adventure and vowed to do it all again soon, only somewhere new!

My Child Is Making Dinner

My child is making Blackened Chicken for dinner. Found the recipe and ingredients and everything all by himself. Knock me over with a feather as I bow down before the God. 

More to come about our awesome, wonderful, amazing first paid for by ourselves hotel vacation we've taken with the kids in Kemah near the coast.

Gentlemen, Heels, and Games

At Starbucks on a cold day you can observe life happening.

A gentleman and his lady, older though they may be, getting up from their conversation, he holds her jacket for her as she puts in her arms. She walks a little slower, he opens the door for her and holds it open before he takes her arm in his as they walk to their car.

A lady, quite tall, with her loafer heels and fuzzy fleece lined jacket, her dark jeans, and her perfect hair and makeup pulls off the warm and cozy look quite spectacular and stylishly. The heels and her height make all the difference, as that outfit on a shorter person would look "comfy" in not such a good way. There was quite a few stylish people walking in and out, but all of them ruin the style factor with flat boots. It's amazing how heeled boots can kick a cold day in the ass.

Each little boy, every single one that came in (which was a lot of them, I'm thinking their mothers' needed a warm wake-up call to be able to keep up with them), longingly stared at the Dora dominoes game Shawners and I were playing on our date, while each little girl talked her Mommy or Daddy's ear off and never even noticed we were playing a game. Except for one little girl, who had Rock Star on the back of her jacket.

At Starbucks, life happens, and I love enjoying my own and watching those who are enjoying theirs go by me.

And you thought this was going to be a dirty post didn't you?

The Small Smell of a Different Campus

If it has to be a different campus, at least it has this view...

that is if you peer sideways in order to see thru the badly bubbled tinting. They must not have thought of that when they designed a building consisting mostly of windows to withstand the heat of the hill country of Texas.

The older architecture gave a slightly cramped feeling. The elementary style school desks in my classroom had me thinking of wearing a school girl outfit, which led to thoughts of Brando and I in action on the desk off to the side at the front. Those thoughts helped to ward off the yawns from hearing the professor drone on about the syllabus and making sure we knew if we needed to be in this class or not. Fortunately, all was made up for by the gorgeous view, the mirrored elevators which lessened my normal claustrophobia of elevators and in which I discovered the "awkward elevator moment" that I never truly knew existed: when you ignore the people that you're on the elevator with until you reach your destination and suddenly discover that there were other people along for the ride and quickly wish them a good day, the elaborate woodwork in the lobbies between the elevators, and the friendly faces I met. I'm so appreciative of all your support... My day rocked a lot better than I thought it would!

So Nervous

I start my fourth class tomorrow and I am sooo nervous. I know I will probably become less and less nervous as I attend more and more classes. But for the moment, new professor, new peers, new and harder material, new classroom, and this time new campus (same school) is a little frightening and overwhelming.

When you know a friend's a bitch...

There's just some friends that I KNOW better than to put any sort of faith in at ALL, yet somehow I still do and I still end up getting hurt. One of the girls from my last class is a bi-otch with a capital b, and I knew it from the beginning (when she got upset with me for going to Sea World with my family over studying with her and our other study partner, and gave me the cold shoulder instead of telling me she was upset). After this last class I've sent her a few emails, one to try and arrange a dinner between her and the other girl, and a few just to check up on her, as well as leaving her a few voicemails. No response. Tonight I find out she's taking the next class with the other girl we studied with (who signed up a long time ago) and I STILL haven't heard from her. It should really come as no surprise to me, but it still stings just a little. 

What the hell is this?! A kid's movie?!

Dear Movie Makers and Raters,

Your rating system sucks. You really should consider a complete overhaul and realize hintingis the same thing as what it really is. You really should stop treating kids as if they are so dumb. They are very smart. Much smarter than you. They get bigger concepts. They ask questions about those. Questions that aren't so fun to answer when they are so DARN YOUNG. If a movie is PG it darn well better not have neighbors joking about poles in the bedroom, hard ons, and how good the husband is with the ladies. Or have dads commenting on other dad's daughters.

As for you movie makers, shame on you for manipulating the system to make your movie PG in order to gain an audience that should never see your movie.

Thank you so much for ruining what could have been an excellent after-christmas Christmas movie with after-christmas Christmas candy evening, and instead turning it into a run to the movie store (again) for a Chicken Little movie with after-christmas Christmas candy evening which turned out quite enjoyable, no thanks to you.

Now if only I could get the image out of my head of how sick you guys must be that that movie would be suitable for ANY child with a parent along, I could enjoy the rest of my evening reading blogs and discontinue fuming.

Sincerely,

Could Rate a Movie Better Than You

Delurker Day

It's been awhile since I jumped on the delurking bandwagon and heard from all you quiet but fabulous readers, so in homage to the blog who got me started in blogging, the same guy who was my very first reader (and commenter) I'm joining delurking day and borrowing his delurker logo! If you come by and read but don't usually say hi, say hi today! I'd love to hear from you and if you have a blog, link you! A lot of people have been stating how many hits they have but I'll admit I have no idea how to read the damn thing. Wait, Brando just told me. I guess I have between 50 and 84 visitors a day. Tell me who you are and say hi!!


As a side note, through gmail's awesome email retaining capabilities I just recently reconnected with the girl I mention in my previous delurking post as bringing the most visitors to my site. How fun to see her name back when she was blogging! I'm crossing my fingers she starts again! Hi, Sam!!

The ESP of Friendships

A good friend and I hadn't talked since last August. Every day he has his these little status messages on gmail chat. Yesterday it was Steak Monday, or something equally ridiculous. Today it was Weather permitting = Taco Tuesday. He lives in San Fran where the storms have been hitting hard. So while I was on the phone with my sis, I sent him a quick text, "now we have food theme weekdays? Hope you're surviving the storms..." knowing full well his chat was idle and he was probably busy at work and expecting no response for awhile... because that's how friendships of this sort work.

A few minutes later my call waiting beeps and I see his number. I pick up his call and say, "That was a quick response." His response, "Huh?". "The text I sent you on gmail just now... did you get it?" "No," he says, "I just left work 5 minutes ago and I'm on my way home." I love when the connection of someone who knows you really, really well never fades.

So In Love

Sunday we had breakfast at Austin Java and then walked Town Lake while the kids biked in front of us. Justinbustin took this picture of us and I heart it.

So in love

More pictures from the day...

Pedaling hard

Brothers - I don't know why Shawners has his hand up in the air on this one, but it's so cute.

Skipping Rocks

I love this moment of the pretty, shiny ornaments catching Justinbustin's eye.

Mr. Independent

A tired moment

A happy tree... or stump

Random Austin art on the bridge

Quiet Time

The last few days have been spent reflecting on what life means to me right now. In light of my Grandpa passing away I've thought a lot more about family and being near them. We're going to California to visit family in February for a short trip, and hopefully again in March, as a result. I've also thought a lot about living near them again (or within a shorter driving distance so we could be in a place where we could still afford to live) or living somewhere here that is open and inviting to family visiting us (i.e. has a guest room). I've also thought a lot about how I treat the people and relationships in my life. Most of us wonder these things when somebody dies I guess, only it hits home a lot harder with someone so close.

I've decided I will make a post on our family blog with pictures I have of Grandpa Rudy, Grandma, the kids, and I, and let the story tell itself. The kids will be able to see how much he loved being with them and what a fun guy he was when they're older. For now, all they need to know is he died, and he is no longer physically with us.

My Grandpa Just Died

My Dad's dad, my first grandpa, died about 7 years ago, just after Justinbustin was born. My Grandma remarried about two years ago, and then divorced a year later. In the time she was married he was the only great grandpa my children knew. The one who let them drive the golf carts completely on their own while sitting on his lap. The one who built miniature towns in his backyard. The one who was absolutely in love with my Grandma. The one who asked me, "So you're my new granddaughter?" The one I asked if I could still call Grandpa after they divorced. Really, I probably spent more time with him than my own Grandpa. Once I was old enough to make my own decisions about who I got to know in my family I had just started to get to know my Dad's dad when he died. Grandpa Rudy had a stroke about a month ago, and was getting better. He had another stroke Christmas Eve, then got pneumonia, and contracted MRSA from the hospital. His body couldn't hold up anymore. I had no idea he was dying.

I am so sad. What will I tell my children when they ask where he is?

What are YOUR New Year's Resolutions?

Normally I don't do New Year's resolutions. But this year, this year is different. I need New Year's resolutions to keep me focused, and help me remember a goal.

Personal

On girl time

Keep up the girl time I started last year. Specifically take the road trip with the girls that I've been wanting to do, visit my cousin in Newport Beach again, take the girl cousins trip to Tahoe we're in the process of planning, and have a few girls' nights out in the summer to boot, preferrably without the hate being with the guy aspect that encouraged me to get out. The reward, the personal satisfaction of continuing to discover who I am apart from mommy and wife.

On taking care of my body

Leave my freakin' face alone! Specifically treat my freakin' breakouts instead of making them worse. Enough with the nerves already - I always torture my face when I'm stressed out or feeling yuck. The reward, a night out with the girls. Yeah, I definitely need a tangible reward for that one.

On my thought life

Be easier on myself. Specifically give myself a break for who I am and what I've done. Sometimes I feel like I am the world's worst accomplisher. Okay, so I don't have a PhD like GFF, and I'm not about to get married like Allison : ) , and I'm not a world traveller like Lava Rocks, but dammit I AM married, have two beautiful children, live in the beautiful city of Austin in an apartment that rocks other apartments, am going to school, homeschooling my children (love/hate relationship aside), and am working. I totally rock when I remember it. The reward, an anniversary trip for Brando and I that I get to plan.

Aspirations

On school

Finish another three semesters of classes. Specifically, take my math class this spring and then two other core classes during the summer and fall semesters. I'm still only taking one class at a time so I can keep up the 4.0 GPA I need to transfer to UT, but that may change depending on the kids' school situation in the fall. The reward, the satisfaction of being on my way to getting my degree.

On my home front

Get my  house back to where I need it to be. Specifically, get back on board with Flylady's emails even if it's just the mission of the day. Man, clutter sneaks back up on me without me realizing it. The reward, the feeling of relief as the weight is lifted off my shoulders of realizing I have a clutter free house.

On my family front

Enjoy life! In the moment. Specifically, taking lots more pictures, but actually ENJOYing the pictures. Oft times a picture can look like a beautiful moment when that's all that it is, beautiful on the outside. This year I want to capture pictures that are beautiful on the outside AND inside. The reward, the satisfaction of having happy memories to go along with the beautiful pictures.

Happy 2008!

Ringing in the new year with champagne, grilling, and fireworks at my sister's and coming home safe and sound before midnight to watch the ball drop - it's going to be a good year. Happy New Year to all of you!